HoofNexus

Dusty was a horse sold to a young girl and brought to a farm for training as a Hunter/Jumper. The trainer at the farm, though well educated in the training of Hunter/Jumpers was a nasty human being with alcohol problems and these she took out on Dusty. If he refused to jump, they’d whip him. When beating and whippings and harsh treatment didn’t work, they took to locking him in a stall that was completely blacked out and leaving him in it for days in his own waste products with the idea that he’d be glad to get out and be more cooperative. On the face of it this is asinine and requires a boozy haze to think clever. Dusty, as it so happens, is a very stubborn horse when force is applied but a very willing horse when love is applied.

A bad trainer doesn’t just mean a failure to train…it also means a failure to form a meaningful relationship where training can take place. That’s often a formula for abuse. If you think forming a relationship with a horse is for pussies and a waste of time then I have a bit of advice…stay the hell away from horses. It’s unfortunate that abusive training techniques sometimes work…they give the lie to the notion that no relationship is necessary. Pat Parelli is fond of saying that a horse doesn’t care how much you know until he knows how much you care. My experience verifies that and more. It’s not enough to do what ‘you,’ the owner thinks of as ‘caring.’ You have to do what the horse thinks of as caring…that is, you have to figure out what your horse needs, your particular horse and his particular needs that will foster a sense of trust, a deeper bond, if you will. Treats are nice but touch is better. Check out my video on Foreplay clinics.

When I started working with Dusty I had no idea how deep the mistrust and fear went. And the anger…he was extremely angry though it didn’t show up in behaviors you might expect like kicking and biting. He could stand in the barn aisle in cross ties but if I walked around the corner carrying a saddle he’d immediately get a bout of diarrhea. So the saddle was put away and I decided to try bareback and a simple rope halter.

For a few days I’d get on him bareback with the rope halter and ask him to move. He’d refuse. He stood stoically and silently like a Greek statue. We’d do that for ten minutes and I’d put him up. Then I decided it was time to have him move a leg so he could see that hell wouldn’t descend on him if he did. So I’d get on him, ask him to move off and when he didn’t I’d slowly pull the left or right rein out in a wide arc to turn his head and this would cause him to move but he’d only move to keep his balance. After a few days of this I figured he had enough ‘experience’ to know he was ok and started to loop left and right turns. It was like a staccato dance. Left, right, stop. Left, right, stop. And our whole trek would be a circle of about 10′ in diameter. After a few days of this he was getting the idea but still stomping to let me know his displeasure. Each day as he stomped around our little circle I was able to make the left and right turns smaller until I just needed to use one to start us off and we could do the whole circle with no left/right pulls. Then I started to make the circles larger. He was still stomping and I figured that was therapeutic for him. I never forced him to move, just gave him a choice between two things and made standing still more difficult and moving rewarding. Lots of neck stroking and a soothing, calm voice. Eventually the stomping got less and less.

Since then I’ve ridden him bareback at a carting event where he was around all manner of carts. We followed them down trails and through pastures, rode in arenas with them through cones and he was the perfect gentleman, calm, attentive, curious and appearing to enjoy himself.

This clip was taken about a year before that outing and a year after I started working with him. I was in no hurry and had many other time consumers to take care of which probably worked to his benefit. I wanted something that I could study to see his behavior from outside the perspective of riding him. You can see that he still has a tendency here to rush things due to anxiety and to be happiest when the session is over. But this is what I did to convince him that what he went through with a rabid trainer was in his past.